NY Times: iPad Ads Sold Out, Paid Digital Subs Healthy

By Tiernan Ray

In case you were not at the UBS Securities media conference this morning, he management of The New YorkTimes (NYT) appeared today, and had some interesting things to say about their future in digital media, Apple‘s (AAPL) iPad, and the rest.

Note: The company also issued a press release saying it expects print advertising to be better in Q4 than it was in Q3: sales are expected to drop only 4% this quarter, compared to the 5.8% drop the company reported on October 19th. (Times had already said back in October that trends were improving for print ads, so this is not totally new.)

Digital ad revenue is expected to be strong, though growing not as fast as in Q3, with a rise of 10% year over year, versus 14.6% in Q3. Newsprint prices are rising again, too, the company said.

Times president & CEO Janet Robinson noted revenue from the company’s Internet properties were up 17% the first nine months of the year, at $274 million, and made up 16% of revenue in that time. Internet ad revenue is up 18% in that time, totaling 26% of total company ad revenue.

Regarding the start of paid access to the Times early next year, Robinson declined to disclose details but said, “The heart of our plan is that users will get access to a set number of articles per month, but will be asked to pay after that.” Surfers clicking in from an external site will not not trigger the paywall, she said. The company will offer “packages” across “platforms,” by which I assume she meant combined Web and iPad/tablet/phone access.

Robinson said the company already has several commitments from advertisers for ads in its iPad app for 2011. Circulation in the ereader platforms where the company already charges — Barnes & Noble‘s (BKS) Nook reader, the Amazon.com (AMZN) Kindle, the Borders (BGP) Kobo reader, and the Times Reader on the Mac & PC — is “healthy,” robinson said.

CFO Jim Follo took the podium after Robinson, to tell the crowd the Times has saved $800 million in operating costs since 2006, with $140 million of that in the last nine months.

In the Q&A section, Times digital manager Martin Nisenholtz said the company had been “sold out” on iPad advertisements since its application went live. Scott Heekin, head of the Times Media Group, said he expected a more “stable” subscriber base for tablets, and that circulation revenue might be higher for tablets than advertising revenue.

About Tech Trader Daily

Tech Trader Daily is a blog on technology investing written by Barron’s veteran Tiernan Ray. The blog provides news, analysis and original reporting on events important to investors in software, hardware, the Internet, telecommunications and related fields. Comments and tips can be sent to: techtraderdaily@barrons.com.